


In the Face of Strength

by katsuxxs



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23451181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsuxxs/pseuds/katsuxxs
Summary: Summer days of Asta and Yuno's childhood.
Relationships: Asta/Yuno (Black Clover)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	In the Face of Strength

Asta.

Fierce strength moved from Yuno’s outstretched hand, manipulating a whirl of wind. He blinked, nearly recoiling, then, remembering his task, planted his small feet and looked forward with a look of determination. The wood, now neatly halved in front of him, was just one out of the large heap aside him. He let out a small breath between his teeth; Father and Sister Lily had entrusted him with this task! He couldn’t let them down. He continued to exercise his wind, sweat beading on various parts of his face as he continued through the numbers. He began to mindlessly wipe at his face, the task becoming easier and more familiar to him. He held out an outstretched hand again, but this time wind met nothing. Yuno blinked; he had finished chopping all the wood. He turned to go inside, to inform Sister Lily. He stopped for a second before completely turning his body in the direction of the orphanage; his amber eyes raised themselves to the forest that lie behind all the stretched land between them and the demon’s skull. He didn’t bother straining his eyes, but he did look determinedly beyond that skull. After a second, he turned back, mind on his prior task.

Yuno.

Asta breathed slowly and heavily, palms on his knees. With every slow, heavy inhale, his mind remained clear, and with every soft exhale, sweat dropped, bead after bead, slowly dampening the grass underfoot. After continuing this for a few more times, he quickly threw back his head and screamed into the forest, now growing drowsy with the retreating sun, to come again tomorrow. 

“Not yet!” he added after his scream, quickly flipping into an upside-down position, limiting his right arm behind his back, straining his left one to lift his weight over and over, a thousand times again. No matter how many times he completed his push-ups, crunches, and tracks through the forest, it still wasn’t enough. Not for him and what he wanted to accomplish, anyways. Dark evenings when he would race back to the orphanage, hoping to make it in time, just in time, his stomach slushing with moguro leaf juice, racing against the orange streaks in the sky, pushed him just a little further. Further, to reach the orphanage, racing in dirty, disheveled, looking like the orphan he was, and crash into his dinner seat. The final push he needed, to nearly demolish his chair with his body’s force, and turn just as quickly to grin at his best friend.

“Yuno!”

The boy turned his head, amber eyes focusing on the familiar sight in front of him. Did he look a little dirtier? He absentmindedly wondered, and fought back one of his now rare smiles. That just meant Asta had become stronger. Which, in turn, meant tomorrow, Yuno had to become twice as strong…

“Asta,” he decided to say calmly. 

The immediate moment his name left his best friend’s mouth, Asta was already launching into a boastful, meant-to-be intimidating taunt in the form of a scream. While all the members of the orphanage were used to this, it didn’t prevent the rest of the children from complaining.

“Asta! You’re so loud,” complained Alru.

“It’s always quiet until he comes around,” Nash stated, glaring at Asta.

“Oi, Nash!” Asta began to argue right back, only to be silenced by Sister Lily. 

“Asta,” she said in her soothing voice, “Your food will grow cold.”

Immediately, Asta began to draw the beginning of tears at the corner of his eyes, dramatically staring in adoration at her. “Sister Lily! You care! Please marry—”

“Please don’t make me use my grimoire at the dinner table,” she cut in quickly, in her firm voice, usually saved for these situations. 

Asta shook his head. “One day, Sister Lily!” He promised, and began to shovel the potatoes on his plate into his mouth. Every evening after his training, Asta arrived completely starved, leaving much improvement for dinner table manners. The other children grimaced and began their daily complaints on Asta’s disgusting eating manners.  
“You don’t even bother chewing your food!”

“Then why do you have your mouth open the entire time?!”

“Why can’t you eat more like Yuno?”

“Because Yuno hasn’t been training his butt off all day to become the Wizard King like I have,” Asta answered immediately, glaring. Just as routine as this dinner was, Asta knew what would come next.

Yuno sighed. “Believe it or not, you have to know how to eat properly as part of becoming the Wizard King. But seeing as I’m going to become the Wizard King, you don’t have to worry.”

Asta instantly began fuming. “Yuno, you handsome jerk! You just watch! I’m going to become a billion times stronger than you and become the Wizard King!” He continued with his threats, half garbled by the potato mush in his mouth. Yuno made a disgusted face and turned away, which simply elicited more garbled screaming, eventually resulting in a coughing fit that left him quiet for several minutes. Yuno smiled down at his plate.  
\--  
Silence was rare in the orphanage filled with children, but as soon as those children retired to dreamland, silence fell upon the building almost as a blanket. Underneath this blanket, two children attempted to move around without waking the others.

Room was just as scarce at the orphanage, but seeing as Asta and Yuno were maturing and on their way to become the Wizard King, they were granted a small room separate from the rest of the children. The room was small; there was nothing remarkable, there was the desk, bed, dresser, window. The last item allowed moonlight to shine through the pane’s glass, illuminating the room and giving a clear view of the demon’s skull. On the shared bed, Asta and Yuno giggled underneath a thin blanket that blocked them from the rest of the world. Right there, it was simply the two of them. It was rare to feel only each other’s presence, as there were always people around them; not that they minded. They sat applesauce-crisscross across from each other, grinning madly. Asta snickered; Yuno had just shown him that day’s small scratch from cutting wood, his main task, and various others.

“That’s nothing,” Asta insisted, and poked his left leg from his sitting ensemble; there was a noticeable gash, nearly noticeable, but cleverly covered by his pants’ fabric. Yuno gasped. “I got this one from running my fifth lap around the forest!”

Yuno had leaned forward a little to see the wound better, and his eyes flickered up to Asta’s proud grin. “Asta! That’s not safe!” Immediately, Asta replaced his grin with a frustrated pout, turning his face away. “It’s not that big of a deal! This is nothing!” He kept insisting. “This is just part of becoming the Wizard King! There will be even bigger fights and risks!” 

Yuno looked up at Asta now, face blank, and immediately crumpled it to begin his tears. Asta turned towards him fully now, alarmed. “Yuno?!”

He softly said, through very small cries, “I don’t want you to become the Wizard King and get hurt!” He continued his whimpering cries. Asta blinked, then placed the palm of his hands on Yuno’s shoulders. “Yuno! This is part of our job! We’re going to first become Magic Knights and compete to see who will become the Wizard King! It’s only natural to get hurt in order to become the strongest and protect everyone else, right?”

Yuno calmed his whimpering, and looked through blurred eyes at Asta. He determinedly looked back with his earnest, emerald green eyes; no, not emerald… a color much more special than emerald. That color that shielded his determination, love, and strength from spilling out all over his face. Yuno gave a small smile, nodded, and gave a determined face himself. “Mm!”

Asta smiled, and they both lie down, side by side on the bed in silence, staring up at the ceiling. Eventually, Asta’s hand found itself intertwined with Yuno’s; whoever made the first move didn’t matter. Their bodies began to intertwine in a way special only to them, who had been sleeping in the same area for as long as they could remember. Every morning, they would wake up, sprawled all over each other, hands somehow still held together. And every morning Asta would jump and scream in order to jumpstart his energy for the day, running out the room, down the corridor, flying down the stairs’ railing, waking up everyone. Yuno would walk out right behind him, the only one smiling as the rest of the orphanage was begrudgingly introduced to the new day. But Yuno… Yuno knew that this day, and every other day, he would be with Asta. That was the only confirmation he needed as he set out on his new day to come this much closer to becoming the Wizard King, his rival not far behind, ever.

**Author's Note:**

> My second written Asta/Yuno fic, pleez provide feedback.<<33


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